MSI X58M - Mighty Mouse

by Gary Key on 5/23/2009 12:00 PM EST
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25 Comments

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  • harbin - Friday, July 24, 2009 - link

    This mobo turbo throttles, if that gets fixed, I'll buy one for sure.
  • kenco - Friday, July 17, 2009 - link

    I think it's brilliant that the holes are there to use s775 coolers. I have a Scythe Ninja (rev.B iirc) sat doing nothing. Do you reckon this'll be okay for a spot of overclocking? I'm a bit loathe to try on the retail hsf as I can see a wall (temperatures) being hit fairly quickly. Also - would Artic Ceramique work okay to replace the gunk under the chipset heatsink? The only other thing that concerns me is there's no pwm heatsink.. and there are no holes around there either. Would thermal tape be enough to transfer heat to a few dinky little heatsinks?

    A lorra questions - hope someone's tried one or more already and had success :)
  • RagingDragon - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 - link

    It has mounting holes for a PWM heatsink - according to the article this board is compatible with the PWM heatsinks used on MSI's full size X58 boards.
  • AsYouWish - Sunday, June 14, 2009 - link

    On page 2 of your article you list the bios revsion on this board as 3.1. I have recently purchased the MSI X58M and no voltage adjustment options are available and the board overvolts the cpu terribly on overclocks (1.35+ volts). The only bios that I see available on the MSI website is revision 1.2 and that is the version that shipped on the board. I am curious as to where you acquired 3.1 bios.
  • Tomzi - Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - link

    I can see BIOS 3.0 on MSI support. Try this, maybe it helps.

    http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=downloaddetail&a...">http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=downl...bios&...
  • AsYouWish - Thursday, June 18, 2009 - link

    Thanks for replying, the 3.0 bios did show up the day after I wrote that (or that's when I noticed they were there). I'm starting to think that I'm missing something here. I updated to the 3.0 and still have the same issue.
  • AsYouWish - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link

    Just to assure anyone considering this board, silly mistake on my part. I do have all the control over voltages that I require. This is what I get for taking a year off from pc building and tweaking.
  • wetwareinterface - Thursday, May 28, 2009 - link

    Too many reviews of Gigabyte products or a brain fart probably but on page 1 you state it has "RTL8111C Gigabyte LAN". You do mean Gigabit lan correct?

    Otherwise interesting article and an interesting budget core I-7 motherboard (never thought I'd be saying that this year).
  • ICBM - Tuesday, May 26, 2009 - link

    It is a shame SiS is not making any chipsets for Core i7. I assume they do not have a license. Talk about the perfect chance!

    I would think it would be similar to the situation when the i850 was Intel's main chipset, and before i865/875. SiS really offered some great alternative solutions, and motherboard makers actually offered decent motherboards based on their chipsets.

    Competition is greatly needed in the Core i7 chipset market(or lack there of).

    Just a thought....wish.
  • AssBall - Monday, May 25, 2009 - link

    Does MSI have any plans for a board like this with integrated video? Getting a uATX board without integrated video seems strange. I'd love to see some cheap x58 with intel IGP.
  • aeternitas - Sunday, June 7, 2009 - link

    Whats even more strange is thinking a SLi/CF motherboard regardless of size should have on-board video.

    Not to mention this is an i7 board. You're in the wrong place!
  • Mr Perfect - Sunday, May 24, 2009 - link

    "We expect to see several new uATX designs when P55 hits the market later this year, if not mini-ITX designs based around it."

    If that's true, then let us know anything you find. While uATX is interesting, gameable M-ITX are unbelievably rare and/or expensive. On a standard ATX board, I use exactly one slot; the x16 PCIe. Needless to say, a M-ITX i5 or i7 board with one of those would be great to play with.
  • wicko - Sunday, May 24, 2009 - link

    Too bad its lowest price is $220 here.. economy+markup = not fun!
  • mmntech - Sunday, May 24, 2009 - link

    Business as usual. It's worth noting that $220 CAD translates to $196 US; so we're paying $30 too much. Might still be worth it if it makes a good Hackintosh rig. Be nice to have something that powerful for running Final Cut.
  • Staples - Sunday, May 24, 2009 - link

    I am a fan of uATX. I don't desire 5 optical drives nor do I care for more than 2 hard drives. I have bought a few uATX boards in the past but the people who make Intel boards always put G31 or another subpar integrated chipset inside of them. There is no reason that the top of the line chipset can not fit inside a uATX board and work just as well as the crap they put in them today. I definitely welcome someone finally making a desirable motherboard in a uATX board.
  • Per Hansson - Sunday, May 24, 2009 - link

    Are we sure these boards support SLI?
    Crossfire is readily mentioned for these series of boards on MSI's homepage.
    But SLI is not mentioned...
    Only in the manual but there it looks very generic...

    http://eu.msi.com/index.php?func=proddesc&main...">http://eu.msi.com/index.php?func=prodde...cat2_no=...
    http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=proddesc&mai...">http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=prodd...2_no=170...
    http://global.msi.eu/index.php?func=proddesc&m...">http://global.msi.eu/index.php?func=pro...cat2_no=...
  • Gary Key - Monday, May 25, 2009 - link

    SLI is fully supported with the upcoming Version 3 BIOS, which should be released this week. My FarCry 2 tests were run with SLI enabled. ;)
  • Googer - Sunday, May 24, 2009 - link

    Nice price on a motherboard, but the lack of legacy PCI (32) is a deal killer for me. I have an X-Fi that I would like to carry over to my new system.

    I could buy an Asus XONAR but at $200, I'd rather put that money towards something better and buy a $365 Asus with PCI and more features than buy a new sound card for an MSI board with only 4 expansion slots.
  • Kibbles - Sunday, May 24, 2009 - link

    It has a regular PCI slot. It's the bottom one.
  • plonk420 - Sunday, May 24, 2009 - link

    i'm still a bit twirked off by my first negative MSI experience with my X58 Pro... i have a review on The Egg... it all boils down to the shoddy northbridge cooler. google "hot IOH" and you'll see how many people had issues...

    this LOOKS ok, but i gotta wonder since i've never had an issue with a NB ever before in my life...
  • Gary Key - Monday, May 25, 2009 - link

    I mentioned on page three about the IOH temperatures, up around 86C or so when overclocking and the board really needs some type of active cooling in that area for 24/7 OC settings. Those temps are still within spec but about 12C higher than the GENE board at like settings. That said, this heatsink worked better than the Platinum board from MSI.
  • GeorgeH - Saturday, May 23, 2009 - link

    Wow. With this board and one of Microcenter's $200 i7 920's, you could build yourself what is essentially a top of the line PC for next to nothing right now. It really makes me wonder what to expect from i5 - it's starting to look like it'll have to be either dirt cheap or offer >90% of i7's performance for it to be a truly interesting option.
  • FaaR - Saturday, May 23, 2009 - link

    As a happy owner of the ASUS Rampage II Gene, I really must say this looks like a great board. I know many people think the Gene's overpriced, and on some level I agree with them. I just happen to think the price I paid was worth it. ;)

    To those that don't like the high cost of the Gene, this board would make an excellent substitute. Heck, it's even a smidgen faster in most tests, how's that for value huh? :D Still, on the whole I prefer my Gene. It has the attention to detail where it really counts, IMO, apart from the MSI board having PCIe x4 instead of the Gene's x1 (slots which become blocked anyway as soon as a double-wide GPU is insterted in the nextdoor x16 slot, making the advantage rather moot...)

    The Gene has passive cooling on the VRMs as standard, makes me breathe a bit easier with regards to the safety and longevity of the components involved. The Gene also has five WELL-PLACED fan headers (all of them of the 4-pin variety for PWM speed management). It has PCIe x16 slots with convenient little pedals to release the board in the slot, instead of those horrific pull-tabs on the MSI board which always makes me curse whenever I have to blindly dig around inside of a case to get the card out. I also really REALLY like the Gene's software X-Fi sound, the driver works great and sounds great once it's been set up.

    And then there's the little power/reset/safe memory/cmos clear buttons too, for those who like stuff like that. Personally I can't really reach any of the mobo buttons once the board's mounted in my case even if the lower PCIe slot isn't housing a 2-slot GPU, but at least they're there for those who can, and they glow in soft-off mode to indicate the board has power so you don't go pulling stuff out without first shutting things off properly...

    All in all, the ASUS board is a bit more polished, although at a greater cost. As is usually the case. :)
  • goinginstyle - Saturday, May 23, 2009 - link

    Wow, somebody finally gets the fact that overclocking and Crysis is not what makes an article, although I like your overclocking results. I hope the roundup gives us more tests results like these. I thought this was a full review based on seven pages as you covered just about anything I wanted to know in this preview. Thank you for a preview that is just not pictures and press release text!
  • danger22 - Monday, July 26, 2010 - link

    does anyone know if win server 2008 x64 supports this board?

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